Dawn Lee Garzon, teaching professor at UMSL’s College of Nursing, talked to KMOV (Channel 4) about the growing trend of urgent care centers in the St.Louis region.

Are urgent care centers the wave of the future?

You’d surely think so by looking at the St. Louis region. SSM Health Care is spending $600,000 on two new facilities. One opened in August, the other plans to open its doors in September. That’s in addition to more than 20 centers in and around the St. Louis area.

“Urgent cares can be there when your primary caretaker cannot be there,” she said. “We’ve realized in the last decade that a lot of things people used to go to emergency rooms for – coughs, colds, minor cuts, bruises and sprains – don’t need to be treated in emergency rooms.”